Ian Jackson & The Olympians
by beachbum999
Summary: Jonah sends his fellow cousins invitations to his private cruise ship where they will be taking the boat to Greece. Since it will be a long boat ride, Jonah decides to entertain his cousins by reciting the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series. But what will the Cahills think when Jonah uses them as the main characters instead?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own The 39 Clues.**

Sixteen-year-old Amy Cahill walked towards the mailbox. She opened it up, and looked through the envelopes.

_Bills, bills, taxes, an invitation from Jonah Wizard, more bills – wait Jonah sent us an invitation? _Amy thought.

Amy ran inside and bumped into Dan. "Watch it, dweeb!" Amy exclaimed.

"What's that fancy envelope doing in your hand?" Dan asked, changing the subject.

"Some kind of invitation from Jonah Wizard." she explained.

Dan's eyes grew as big as headlights. "Cool! Lemme see, lemme see!"

Amy lifted it out of Dan's reach. She tore it opened and read the message out loud:

**Dan and Amy Cahill**

**I invite you to my cruise ship; named the S.S. Wizard, for a boating trip to Greece.**

**When: Tomorrow at 11:00. **

**Where: At you're nearby harbor.**

**Sincerely, **

**Jonah Wizard.**

Now, it was Amy's turn for her eyes to grow big. "Greece? I've always wanted to go there!"

_Oh no, _Dan thought. _If Amy wants to go to Greece, it's probably pretty historic and stuff, so… I'm screwed._

**The Next Day…**

The next day, Nellie dropped them of at the harbor with their two duffle bags each, and one backpack each.

"You kiddos going to be okay? You have my cell number incase you need me, right?" Nellie said.

"Yes Nellie," Amy laughed. "We'll be fine."

"Good," Nellie smiled. "See you two."

Nellie waved them a final goodbye and left in her black Honda.

Amy had a far-away look in her eyes. Dan new she was thinking about how "wonderful" there trip in Greece would be. He smirked. Dan new what to say that would wipe that smile right off her face.

"Hey, you know that if Jonah invited us to his private cruise ship, he probably invited the Kabra's too, right?" Dan said.

Amy's face paled. Just the thought of Ian Kabra made her stomach feel sick. "Oh, no. I did not think about that,"

Just then, without them noticing a huge cruise ship appeared in the harbor. It was titled the S.S. Wizard. They saw the anchor drop, and Jonah appeared on the front deck. "Wassup me homies?" he said.

"Jonah!" Dan yelled over the wind. "Let us in! It's cold out here!"

Jonah smiled and the gangplank lowered. The two rushed inside into to meet a gigantic living room with a plasma TV, couches, bean bag chairs, a Wii and Xbox, a coffee table with tons of DVDs, and a snack bar.

Dan almost fainted. "I'm in heaven."

"Have a seat, yo," Jonah said.

And for the first time, Amy noticed Jonah, Sinead, Ned, and Ted Starling, Madison, Reagan, and Hamilton Holt, and Ian and Natalie Kabra sitting on the couches.

Amy stalled. "Um, w-where do we p-p-put our l-luggage?"

"I'll take care of that," Jonah replied. Jonah pressed a button on his remote and a butler appeared immediately with a luggage carrier. Amy and Dan put their duffel bags and backpacks on it, and the butler went to a nearby elevator, and pressed the button. Soon, he walked inside, pressed another button, and the door closed.

"Take a seat," Jonah said again.

Amy took a seat on a couch the farthest away from Ian. As soon as she sat, Jonah spoke. "Thanks for coming. And, since you all know that we are going to Greece, I am going to tell you all a story that will help you learn more about Greece," the Holts, Dan, and Natalie groaned. But Ian, Sinead, Ned, Ted, and Amy sat up straighter, with an eager expression on their faces. "But," Jonah continued, "I'll think it will be entertaining enough for even Dan to enjoy it,"

"That's saying something," Amy mumbled.

"I decided to read you the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series."

Ian spoke first. "I heard that it's a popular book series. I wanted to read it, but I never got the time to."

"I wanted to read that too," Amy said.

Dan groaned. "If Amy likes anything – especially when it comes to books – I am not interested.

Jonah smiled. "But, when if I replaced the characters in the books with you guys?"

Dan sat up a little straighter. "I'm listening."

Jonah smirked. "I thought so,"


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or The 39 Clues.**

"Just to warn you guys," Jonah said before he began. "Some of you will not be introduced until the later books. And since there aren't a lot of us, there will be some characters that aren't replaced with us.

Jonah began the story. He didn't even need a book. He memorized it.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

"What's a half-blood?" Reagan asked.

Jonah ignored her.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth and try to live a normal life.**

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

"Well, that's a happy thought," Natalie mumbled.

**If you're a normal kid,**

"We're not normal," Ian and Amy said at the same time. They both blushed.

Dan and Natalie smirked.

**reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe none of this ever happened.**

"Who narrated this in the book?" Amy asked.

Jonah shrugged. "The main character."

Reagan and Madison snickered. Amy blushed.

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages – if you feel something stirring inside – stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

"Oh, no!" Dan joked. "I think I feel something stirring inside. Ahh! They're coming after me!"

The Holts laughed. Natalie rolled her eyes. Amy muttered "dweeb" under her breath.

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"Dun dun dun!" Hamilton said.

"Page break," Jonah announced. After a second, he kept on reciting the story.

**My name is Ian Jackson.**

"Hey!" Ned complained. "How come Ian gets to be the main character?"

"Reasons," Jonah replied.

Ian smirked.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

**Yeah. You could say that.**

That literally wiped the smirk right off of Ian's face. Everyone in the room burst out laughing. When Ian saw Amy giggling, he started to blush.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

That paragraph made everyone laugh even harder. Ian blushed more.

**I know – it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair.**

"How could that make the field trip any better?" Ted asked.

**He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

Natalie scrunched her nose. "Eeew! How can anyone wear anything as brutal as that?"

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher that didn't put me to sleep.**

Dan's eyes lit up. "I want some armor and weapons! I think they'd be good to use against Cobras,"

Natalie stuck her tongue out at Dan.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble. **

**Boy, was I wrong.**

"Ian's always wrong," Natalie said.

"No, I'm not!" Ian retorted. "I have a very high IQ."

She rolled her eyes.

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.**

Ian made a face. "I would never do things like that!"

"Dan would," Sinead said.

"I _would_," Dan agreed.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Jonah in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Who made you my best friend?" Ian asked.

"I did," Jonah replied.

"Eeew," Ted said. "Who eats peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwiches?"

"Nancy Bobofit would," Hamilton shrugged.

**Jonah was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. **

Ned and Ted winced.

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Now I'm in the mood for enchiladas," Dan said.

"Chicken or cheese?" Jonah asked.

"Cheese," he responded.

Jonah pressed another button on his remote and a plate full of cheese enchiladas appeared on the coffee table. Dan ran and picked up the whole platter before anyone could grab some. He sat back down and yelled, "My enchiladas!"

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Ha, I can just imagine," Dan said.

"No, you can't," Ian said. "Nothing has ever happened to me like that before,"

"Well, there was this one time when-" Natalie began, but Ian cut her off.

"Natalie, shut up,"

"**I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"I wonder how literal that would've been if Ian was actually in that situation," Madison wondered out loud.

**Jonah tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

"**That's it." I started to get up but Jonah pulled me back to my seat.**

"**You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

"Dun dun dun!" Hamilton said again.

"Seriously, that's getting old," Jonah said.

"Just continue reciting the story," Natalie mumbled.

"Yeah," Ian agreed. "I can't wait to see myself get embarrassed more by this story," he said sarcastically.

"Where was I? Oh, yeah!" Jonah's eyes lit up. "Page break."

"That's it? Page break?" Madison complained.

"No," Jonah said. "There's more,"

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

"Why black-and-orange?" Dan asked.

"Why do you care?" Natalie retorted.

"Why do you care about what I just said?"

"SHUT UP!" Ned said. "You're making my headaches return!"

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele, **_**for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting,**

"_Kind of _interesting?" Ian said. "I would be _very _interested in that stuff. This character is nothing like me- wait, what character am I?"

"Percy Jackson, the main character," Jonah replied. "And I'm Grover Underwood, his best friend,"

"Oh," Ian replied.

**but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"Who's Mrs. Dodds?" Dan asked.

"Weren't you just listening?" Amy snapped. "Jonah just said that she was a teacher chaperone!"

"Duh," Reagan said.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.**

The Holts snorted.

**She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.**

"Devil spawn," Dan snickered.

"Not me, Daniel, but maybe _you_," Ian responded.

**She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"I am really starting to not like this story," Ian said through clenched teath.

"Ian, it's just a story," Amy said sweetly.

Ian blushed slightly. "Continue," he said to Jonah.

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Jonah I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Ian is never right," Natalie said again.

Ian looked annoyed. "Like I said before, I have a _very _high IQ!"

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up**_**?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

It was Dan's turn to snicker. Ian's face turned a shade of red that was unknown to mankind.

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

"**Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

"Knowing Ian, he would've made a very smart comment back at the teacher," Sinead said.

Ian glared daggers at her. "Maybe _then, _but not _now_!"

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

"I would've recognized that right away," Amy said.

"I second the motion," Ned and Ted said at the same time.

"**Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. **

"I always satisfy my teachers," Ian bragged.

"**And his did this because…"**

"**Well…" I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"**

"**God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

"Titan," Ian mumbled.

"**Titan," I corrected myself.**

"Creepy…" Hamilton mumbled.

"**And… he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brother and sisters-"**

"Eeew!" Natalie said.

"**Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

"Creepy…" Hamilton said again.

"You _have_ noticed that you keep repeating things during this story, right?" Amy pointed out.

"**-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

**Some snickers from the group. **

"Why would they snicker from explaining a picture?" Natalie asked.

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"Ditto," Dan said.

"What does that mean?" Natalie asked.

_Why do Americans have to be so weird? _Natalie thought.

Dan rolled his eyes. "It means, _I agree_."

"**And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"**Busted," Jonah muttered.**

"**Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"That'd be cool," Dan said. "to have real radar cars."

"I totally agree," Hamilton said.

"Hmm," Ted was thinking. "Ned, write a blueprint. After this vacation, we're _so _doing that!"

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

"**I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld.**

Dan's eyes lit up. "That is so cool!"

"No," Natalie disagreed. "That is completely _disgusting_!"

**On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or The 39 Clues.**

"Was that the end of the chapter?" Madison asked.

"No," Jonah replied. "Just another page break."

"Ugh!" Hamilton complained. "This chapter is _sooo _long!"

"Not it's not," Jonah said. "You guys just keep interrupting me to put in your side comments!"

"Good point," Hamilton responded.

"Jonah, just continue with the story," Sinead said. "I'm anxious to see what happens next."

"Yeah," Ian said. "To see the many more wonderful ways on how to embarrass Ian Kabra."

Jonah continued.

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, and the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Boys aren't doofuses," Ned mumbled.

**Jonah and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

"Oh, great," Dan said. "Now Ian's some kind of fortune-teller."

Amy rolled her eyes.

**I told Jonah to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go – intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"**You must learn to answer my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

"**About the Titans?"**

"About real life. How your studies apply to it."

"Duh," Ted said.

"**Oh."**

The group, except for Ian and Jonah, snickered.

"**What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Ian Jackson."**

"Hmm, Ian Jackson…" Ian mused. "That does have a nice ring to it."

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"You don't want to get Ian angry," Dan said, "The next thing you know, you'll have a poison dart in your neck."

The Holts mumbled in agreement.

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never had a grade made above a C- in my life.**

Ian's jaw dropped. "I can't believe you made me this character, Jonah!"

But no one heard him because they were laughing so hard.

**No – he didn't expect me to be **_**as good**_**; he expected me to be **_**better**_**. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

"Oh, please," Ian, retorted, "I would've memorized all of that stuff."

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at that girl's funeral.**

"Is it just me, or does the author here keep saying that this guy acts like he's thousands of years old?" Natalie pointed out.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas.**

"Sure," Sinead grumbled. "Always blame global warming."

**We'd had massive snowstorms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

**Nobody else seemed to notice.**

"How could anybody not notice something like _that_?" Hamilton asked.

**Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse,**

"If that Bobofit girl tried doing that to me," Natalie threatened. "She would end up finding a dart gun aimed at her head."

**and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

"This Mrs. Dodds lady is starting to remind me of Aunt Beatrice," Dan shuddered.

**Jonah and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that **_**school – the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"For once," Ian muttered, "I agree with the Percy."

"**Detention?" Jonah asked. **

"**Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean – I'm not a genius."**

The Cahills started to laugh. Ian blushed harder.

**Jonah didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I though he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Everyone started laughing again. This time, even Ian cracked a smile.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat.**

Ian shuddered at the thought of his real mother, the one who was in prison.

**I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, **

_Not my mother, _Ian and Natalie thought.

**but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to get kicked out again.**

Everyone laughed again.

"I've never been kicked out of a school," Ian grumbled.

**I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he was reading a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.**

"I want one of those!" Dan said.

"We should do that one too…" Ned mumbled to Ted.

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends – I guess she got tired of trying to steal from the tourists – and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Jonah's lap.**

"Gross," Madison muttered.

"**Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos. **

Dan got an evil smile on his face.

"Don't even think about it," Amy said to him.

**I tried to stay cool. The counselors had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper."**

Natalie snorted. "Like that would ever help with Ian's anger issues."

**But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Ian pushed me!"**

"Finally!" Hamilton said. "Someone taught that girl a lesson!"

Ian smirked.

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

"Now this Mrs. Dodds person is _really _starting to remind me of Aunt Beatrice," Dan shuddered.

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**

"**-the water-"**

"**-like it grabbed her-"**

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was going to be in trouble again.**

"Ha, Ian getting in trouble," Dan said, "You should've made that person _me_,"

"I already have another character planned for you," Jonah said. "But this character doesn't appear till the later books," **(A/N: But I'm sure you'll **_**love **_**who Dan's character is though)**

"Darn…" he replied. But Dan didn't seem that upset about it.

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds made sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising her to get a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now honey-"**

"Uh oh," Hamilton sang, "Ian's getting in trouble,"

"Shut up," Ian's face was red.

"**I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"**Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

"**Wait!" Jonah yelped. "It was me. **_**I **_**pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Jonah to death.**

"That's the first _and _last time someone will take the blame for Ian Kabra," Reagan said, "Even if it _is_ just in a story."

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

Dan was holding back a laugh. "Whiskery chin…" he mumbled.

"**I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

"**But-"**

"**You-will-stay-here."**

Jonah looked at me desperately.

"**It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

"Wow, and for Ian Kabra to _not _let someone take the blame for him," Reagan continued.

"**Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked. I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"Ian does have one of those," Natalie said, "_And _a deluxe smirk, too."

"So do you," Ian snapped back at Natalie.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there.**

Hamilton gasped sarcastically.

**She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it.**

"Being a Lucian, that never happens to me," Ian said, "My brain needs to be awake and sharp at all times,"

**The school counselor told me this part was ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"Great," Ian complained, "First I have dyslexia, now I have ADHD."

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Jonah. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"This Brunner guy is starting to creep me out too," Sinead said.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"Like Ian would buy anything for anyone," Dan grumbled.

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

"Ham, I bet you $10 that this teacher isn't normal," Dan betted.

"I bet that she isn't _human. _The deal is on," Hamilton and Dan shook hands.

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…**

"**You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

"It's nice hearing that directed towards someone else, and not me," Dan looked smug.

"It's just a story! This isn't actually happening to me!" Ian exclaimed.

"Cobra," Dan muttered.

"Git," Ian shot back.

**I did the safe thing.**

"That's a first," Natalie mumbled.

**I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

"The resemblance… Aunt Beatrice… Mrs. Dodds… scary," Dan said.

"For once, I agree with you," Amy said.

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"Wow, Ian scared of a teacher," Sinead said.

"_Definitely _a first," Natalie repeated.

**I said, "I'll – I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

"**We are not fools, Ian Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

"Creepy," Natalie said. "That sounds like one of the best Lucian agents while interrogating someone."

Dan gulped, "How can you guys stand that kind of stuff?"

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on **_**Tom Sawyer **_**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

Everyone started laughing.

"I once did that!" Dan exclaimed. "I was supposed to read _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_, and-"

Amy glared at him. "You what?" she said with anger.

"Nothing," Dan squeaked.

"I believe its _Harry Potter and the _Philosopher's _Stone_," Natalie said. "And I'm shocked Daniel, you know how to read book title's!"

"No it isn't," Dan snapped back. "And I've always known how to read! How do you think I read my Ninja Turtle comics?"

"Guys," Amy said while rubbing her head. "It simply has different titles in different countries,"

"Stop fighting," Ian snapped at Natalie, "You're giving Amy- uh, everyone else a headache."

Natalie smirked. "Why of _course_, Ian,"

"**Well?" she demanded.**

"**Ma'am, I don't…"**

"**Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human.**

"Ha!" Hamilton yelled. "She isn't human. _I _won the bet. Give me my $10 dollars."

"No!" Dan said. "Jonah did that on purpose so I would lose!"

Jonah raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, little dude. Those were the exact same words in the book,"

Dan reached into his pocket and gave the money to Hamilton while mumbling something about ninjas attacking Hamilton in his sleep.

**She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in hand.**

"**What ho, Ian!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

"A pen?" Ian complained. "He comes to my rescue, and all he has is a _pen_?"

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. **

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword – Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"Cool!" Dan's eyes gleamed.

"Seriously, this book has _tons _of good ideas that we can use as real inventions." Ned said while writing something down in his notebook.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"Geez," Madison said. "Even in her monster form, she keeps up with the 'honey' thing,"

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"The only thing that came naturally… Pfft, that _should've_ been the onlything that came naturally!" Hamilton said.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through the body as if she were made of water. **_**Hisss!  
**_

"Ouch," Sinead said.

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow power, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

"Wow," Amy muttered. "That is really weird."

**I was alone.**

"No surprise there," Dan said.

"Dan!" Amy snapped at him.

"Sorry for making fun of your boyfriend, Amy," Dan said with an evil glint in his eyes.

Amy's cheeks turned a deep shade of red. "Dan! H-h-he's n-not my b-b-b-boyfriend!"

"Okay then," Jonah said awkwardly. "Back to the story…"

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

"Now, that is pretty creepy," Reagan, said. "I mean, Brunner is there with you, and then the next thing you know, BAM! He isn't there, without a trace!"

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Magic mushrooms?" Ian said. "Seriously?"

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Jonah was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

"**Our **_**teacher**_**. Duh!"**

"That's weird," Hamilton said.

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Jonah where Mrs. Dodds was. **

**He said, "Who?"**

"How can he not know who she is?" Natalie asked. "Percy said so himself that whatever character Jonah was playing afraid of Mrs. Dodds. Now he doesn't know who she even is."

"It's Grover," Jonah mumbled in annoyance.

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"**Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

"This is starting to creep me out…" Dan stated.

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensils in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

"**Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

"**The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Ian, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right"?**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry I haven't updated in **_**forever**_**! I've been busy with my job at my dad's restaurant and my cousins just visited from Philadelphia, and ugh. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson & The Olympians, and The 39 Clues.**

"Dude, is that _another _page break?" Hamilton complained.

"Nah, that's the end of the chapter," Jonah said.

"Finally!" Dan screamed while jumping on top of the couch he was sitting on. Everyone was looking at him funny. "Sorry, I'm just hungry," he said and sat back on the couch.

"You just ate a whole plate full of enchiladas," Amy grumbled.

"I know, but now I'm hungry for _skittles_," Dan responded. He looked at Jonah with a hopeful expression on his face.

"No," Amy exclaimed. "_No_! Jonah _please _don't give him any skittles!"

"Yes," Dan stared at Jonah, "Give him the skittles, Jonah. Don't listen to his sister."

"Stop talking about yourself in the third person," Madison said. "It's freaking me out."

"Congrats, Holt!" Sinead said. "You know what third person is!"

"Sorry, dude," Jonah said. "Fresh out of skittles."

"What!" Dan yelled. "Any sane person would have skittles on this ship! Someone must have eaten them all. Who did it?"

"Cough* Hamilton *Cough," Ian said.

"Thanks for ratting me out, Cobra," Hamilton muttered.

"Your welcome," Ian smirked.

"You'd better watch your back, Hamilton," Dan said. "You never know when a ninja will sneak up behind you…"

Dan let that hang in the air.

"Let's get back to the story," Ned said, using caution with his words.

"Okay, chapter two," Jonah announced. "Also known as _Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death_,"

"Wow," Natalie said. "Quite a catchy title."

"What was the first chapter called?" Amy said, amazed that the second chapter could have such a crazy title.

"_I Accidentally Vaporize my Pre-Algebra Teacher_," Jonah responded.

"Those are some… interesting chapter titles," Ian said. **(A/N: Sorry for using the word **_**title**_** so much. I couldn't think of anything else to replace that word with.)**

"Okay, I'll just continue reciting the story like I was going to before you guys rudely interrupted me," Jonah continued.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle.**

"Twenty-four/seven?" Natalie asked, confused. "What in heck does that mean? How come Americans have to have such weird sayings?"

"It means twenty-four hours a day; seven days a week," Ian explained. "Seriously Natalie, even I knew that,"

**For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr – a perky blonde woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip – had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas. **

"Those other students must be really mean if this _is _a trick," Reagan said.

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference to somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"Psycho…" Dan muttered while trying not to laugh.

"Seriously, if you keep that up Daniel, I will throw you overboard," Ian said. He looked at Amy for permission.

"By all means, do it," Amy responded with an evil smile on her face.

Dan looked scared.

**It got so I almost believed them – Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

**But Jonah couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened at the museum.**

"Oh, _really_?" Natalie asked sarcastically.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in cold sweat.**

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows of my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. **

"Yikes," Ned and Ted said at the same time.

**One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time.**

The Holts snorted.

**My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

"Wow, Ian would _never_ be able to handle that," Natalie said. "When he got his first B on a test, he freaked out and sued the teacher."

"Oh, I remember that," Ian said. "Her name was… Mrs. Francesco, I think. She was my… um, Science teacher."

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out in the hallway in almost every class.**

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

Everyone burst out laughing again. "Old… sot…" Dan wheezed. "That's… a good… one,"

"Why is everyone laughing when you don't even know what it means?" Ian asked.

"I don't know, but it sounds good," Hamilton said.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

"And here it comes," Dan said in a dramatic voice, "the world-famous suspension of Ian Jackson!"

"Shut it," Ian growled.

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

**I wanted to be with my mom**

Ian and Natalie winced.

**in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

**And yet… there were things I would miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Jonah, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

"Oh, great," Dan muttered. "Now Ian is going all emotional on us."

**I'd miss my Latin class, too – Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

Then the Holts all said at the same time: "Dun dun dun!"

"Will you please stop saying that?" Natalie said sweetly. Then she pulled out her dart gun. "I hardly believe you would want to disagree with me."

"Natalie," Ian said. "I thought I took that thing away from you for this trip."

"I have my ways," Natalie responded.

"Wow, Natalie," Dan said. "How did you get it back? You have to teach me for the next time Amy takes away my Nintendo,"

"Of course," she responded. "I always knew you looked up to me, Daniel,"

"One, its DAN! And two, no I don't,"

"Oh, no," Amy muttered. "Here it comes, another headache from your constant fighting,"

"Don't worry, Amy," Ian said. "I'll tell Natalie to _shut up_!"

The last part was directed more towards Natalie then to Amy.

"Let's get back to the story," Sinead said.

"Okay, that was another page break…" Jonah muttered to himself, trying to find out where he was before he left off. "Okay, now I remember where we were…"

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room.**

"Wow," Madison said. "Talk about anger issues…"

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces.**

"Huh?" Dan asked, completely confused.

"They're people from Greek Mythology," Ian and Amy said at the same time.

Ian looked at Amy and smiled. She looked away quickly, her cheeks red from blushing.

**And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Ian Jackson.**_

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the Mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before.**

"I haven't," Ian agreed.

**Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam.**

The Holts, Natalie, and Dan snickered.

**I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I haven't tried.**

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window was stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Jonah's said "…worried about Ian, sir."**

"Worried about Ian's mental health?" Natalie joked.

"I'm perfectly sane, thank you very much," Ian snapped.

"Oh really? Because everyone else in this room thinks otherwise," she responded.

"Hey, Amy," Ian said while glaring at Natalie. "I'm just spit balling here, but, do you happen to know where the hidden pressure point is in someone's neck that if you touch it, the person will become unconcious?"

"Yes," Amy said very slowly, "But I'm afraid to tell you."

Natalie gulped and covered her neck with her hands while looking at Ian with caution.

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"Touché," Dan said.

**I inched closer.**

"…**alone this summer," Jonah was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too-"**

Even Dan couldn't think of anything to say. Everyone was quiet, listening to see what Jonah would say next.

"**We would only make matter worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

"**But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline-"**

"**Will have to be resolved without him, Jonah. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

"**Sir, he **_**saw**_** her…"**

"**His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

"Well, it isn't working, Brunner," Reagan mumbled, mostly to herself.

"**Sir, I… I can't fail my duties again." Jonah's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

"**You haven't failed, Jonah," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Ian alive until next fall-"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

"Way to go, Ian," Dan said. "Brunner was about to say something important, then you have to drop the book!"

"It's not me doing this stuff," Ian said. "It's. Just. A. Story!"

"Don't worry, Dan," Jonah said. "It will all be revealed soon in this book. How about we take a break? It's getting late."


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own The 39 Clues or Percy Jackson & The Olympians. **

**I'm so sorry I haven't updated in forever! I've just been so busy, you know with work, and back-to-school and all of that. Sorry again and a million times over!**

After Jonah announced that they were going to stop for the night, Hamilton asked, "What's for dinner?"

"Only you would ask that, Holt," Sinead muttered under her breath, but everyone heard her.

"Well excuse me," Hamilton retorted. "But I haven't had dinner yet and I'm _starving_!"

"For once, I agree with Hamilton," Natalie commented. "Jonah, do you have any caviar?"

"And only _you _would ask that, Cobra," Dan said.

Natalie just glared.

"Yeah, my chefs made pizza," Jonah said while stretching. He pressed a button on his remote and three plain pizza pies appeared on the table.

Everyone headed towards the table for a slice of pizza, except for Natalie, whose nose was wrinkled in disgust.

"You actually think I am going to eat that rubbish?" Natalie exclaimed.

"Yes, Natalie," Ian said, biting a piece of his pizza. "Even if we have to shove it down your throat."

"Ian!" Natalie yelled. "Since when do you eat pizza?"

"Since that family reunion a year ago," Ian explained. "It wasn't by choice. It was more like force-feed by Hamilton and Dan."

"I remember that!" Hamilton shouted.

"I remember too," Dan snickered. Then he frowned. "I remember he shot us with his poison dart gun afterwards."

"Oh, I remember _that_," Ian smirked. "I shot you with poison number 49. You guys did some really embarrassing stuff that night in front of the other Cahills."

"Dan, you were telling the truth!" Amy exclaimed. "I thought you ran around in your Pokèmon boxers on purpose – just to embarrass me,"

"I thought you two were on a sugar high," Sinead said while laughing.

"No one ever believes me," Dan muttered.

"Okay, enough chit chat," Jonah said. "Who wants to play a game?"

"Like what?" Natalie asked, while inspecting her nails.

"What about that game when someone says three facts about themselves – but one of them has to be a lie, and the others have to guess what it is?" Madison suggested enthusiastically.

"Okay, I'll go first," Dan announced.

"Oh no," Amy mumbled.

"Okay. One: I've read every single entry in Amy's diary," Dan said. "Two: I used to think that Superman was cooler than ninjas when I was seven, and three: I got a three-week detention for pulling down my teacher's pants in 5th grade."

"One!" Amy yelled.

"Two," the Holts, Ned and Ted said.

"Three," the rest said.

"It's two!" Dan shouted over his shoulder as he ran out the door to get away from Amy, whose face was red from anger.

"Daniel Arthur Cahill, I am going to KILL YOU!" Amy yelled while running after him.

The other Cahills waited patiently in the "lounge", as Jonah called it, while they heard Dan scream, a smash, and a slamming of a door. Amy and Dan re-entered later, with Dan rubbing the back of his head.

"Amy, that hurt," he mumbled.

"Oh, that was only just the beginning," Amy replied with an evil grin. "Hey, Natalie, I might need to talk to you later…"

Dan gulped and Natalie smirked evilly.

"Um, who wants to go next?" Ned asked.

"I will," Natalie volunteered. "One: I used to hate Gucci, two: I videotaped Ian while he was sleep talking **(A/N: I know, it's been done, but I couldn't think of anything else) **and three: When I was six, I used to like chocolate ice cream."

"One," everyone but Ian said.

"Two!" Ian exclaimed.

"It's one," Natalie confirmed.

"Natalie," Ian said. "I have a surprise for you," Ian pulled out his dart gun.

"Oh, come on," Natalie complained. "You can have your dart gun and I can't?"

"Because I'm the oldest," Ian shrugged. "This is poison number 71. Do I have to, Natalie?"

Natalie gulped and shook her head violently. She managed to say: "Why are you even upset that I videotaped you while you were sleeping?"

"Because," Ian said. "You spied on me and snuck into my room in the middle of the night." _And I'm afraid of what she heard me say, _Ian added mentally.

"Good point," Natalie responded.

"And if it ever happens again, I _will _find out, and there _will _be a punishment. Do you understand?"

Natalie nodded. Ian put his dart gun away.

"What is poison number 71?" Dan asked eagerly.

"That's classified; for Lucians only," Ian said.

"Aww…" said Dan.

"I'm tired," Reagan complained. "Can we crash for the night?"

"'Fo sure," Jonah said. "I'll show you to your rooms,"

After everyone was settled and asleep in their rooms, there was a tall, and dark shadow of a large man wandering the halls of the cruise ship.

"The Cahills are all here," the man said into his phone.

"Good, good," another man responded. "Those Cahills are in for a very nice surprise very soon,"

The man was sure his employer's definition of "a very nice surprise" was different from his.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own The 39 Clues and Percy Jackson & The Olympians**

**Please read my author's note at the end of this chapter!**

**Oh, and some reviewer (I forget which reviewer, sorry if your that person) that asked me which book this takes place after. I intend it to take place after Vesper's Rising. **

Amy woke up in her suite at Jonah's cruise ship. For a second, she didn't know where she was. Then, she remembered.

She got up and looked at the clock. It was 8:30 am.

Amy walked up and brushed her teeth and combed her hair. She put on a plain green t-shirt and jeans. She walked back to the "lounge" as Jonah called it. **(A/N: I know I've said this before in one of the previous chapters, but I just wanted to remind you all that the room they'll be sitting in reading the book will be called the "lounge")**

Amy regretted it immediately. She was greeted by the sound of Dan's screaming, "Give it back, Cobra!"

She saw that Dan was trying to tackle Ian with no such luck. He was trying to push Ian over, but with no effort what so ever, he just put his hand on Dan's head and pushed him away.

Amy suppressed some giggles threatening to burst out at any moment. But, she just realized she was the last one up, and that everyone was laughing at Dan's misery.

She turned her attention back to the two. Ian was holding Dan's phone out of his reach. Why he was doing that – Amy had no earthly idea. And she was sure she didn't want to find out, either.

Nevertheless, Amy walked over and separated the two: Dan with a scowl on his face, while Ian had a smug looking smirk on his.

"What's the matter, you two?" Amy asked.

But Ian wasn't paying attention. She heard him mutter, "And, delete,"

"Delete what?" Amy asked.

Dan's eyes widened. Then, he cried, "You deleted it?"

"I had to, unless I wanted to be embarrassed for the rest of this trip,"

Amy turned towards Dan. "What did you do?"

"I might've stolen Natalie's idea, and, um… broke into Ian's room this morning… and, erm, videotape him sleep talking," he said sheepishly.

"Haven't you ever heard of privacy, Dan?" Amy asked.

"Yes, but it isn't in my vocabulary," he responded. "I was just about to show it to everyone here, when Ian just had to walk in and take the phone away from me, because he saw me leave his room,"

That's when Amy realized when Ian was still in his pajamas… at least in his pajama _bottoms._ He was completely shirtless. Then, she realized how close Ian was standing to her. She felt herself begin to blush.

"You should've heard him," Dan barely held in his laughter. "He was all like-"

"I don't want to hear it, Dan," Amy interrupted him.

"But-"

"No buts. Now, apologize to Ian," Amy gestured towards Ian.

"I'm sorry," Dan muttered.

"What was that, Daniel?" Ian mocked him. "I didn't catch that,"

"I'm SORRY!" Dan yelled. "Happy now?"

Ian smirked. "Yes. Apology accepted. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go change into some, um, _proper_ attire,"

But no one but Amy and Dan heard him, because everyone else was laughing so hard.

"I just caught that whole argument on videotape," Hamilton said.

Jonah gave him a high-five. "That's so going on YouTube, dawg,"

Jonah began reciting the story again:

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. **

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

"An archer's bow?" Dan asked excitedly. "I want one of those!"

"In your dreams, dweeb," Amy replied.

But then, Dan's phone vibrated in Ian's pocket.

"Dan," Ian said. "Your phone's ringing. I forgot to give it back to you,"

Ian handed Dan his phone. Dan read the text from Hamilton. It said:

**Don't worry. I'll get you an archer's bow for Christmas.**

Dan smiled evilly.

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop**_**, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling outside my door.**

"An animal?" Amy asked suspiciously.

**A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

"**Mine neither," Jonah said. "But I could have sworn…"**

"Could've sworn what?" Dan exclaimed. Everyone stared at him weirdly.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I wanted to know what he was going to say."

"We all did too, but we didn't start talking to no one in particular," Natalie commented.

"I think you should be concerned about his mental health, Natalie, and not mine," Ian said.

"You'd better watch it, Cobra," Dan snapped.

"Your lucky I gave you your phone back," Ian retorted.

"**Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

"Don't remind me."

"That's what I would've said," Madison said.

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Jonah was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

"Liar!" Hamilton yelled.

"Be quiet, Dolt," Natalie said.

"**Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

"**You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

"That's probably going to be the only time someone tells Ian he looks horrible, and ask if he's okay in the same sentence," Sinead said.

No one argued with her, not even Ian. They all knew that was true.

"**Just… tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

**I didn't understand what I heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Jonah and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"Page break," Jonah announced. He took a deep breath and continued.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all of the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

"Uh oh," Dan mocked Ian. "Looks like someone's in trouble,"

"**Ian," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's… it's for the best."**

"It _is_," Ian said. "I wouldn't last one day in that pathetic school,"

"For once, I agree with you, man," Jonah said.

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

"Yuck," Ian, Dan, and Hamilton said at the same time.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

"**I mean…" Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

"A matter of time before what?" Ned asked eagerly.

Jonah was about to continue, but then Dan interrupted. "Wait, so Ned can talk to no one in particular like that and I can't?"

"That's because you're Daniel," Ian said. "A cross between a monkey and a go-kart," **(A/N: I got that from Rapid Fire: Crushed)**

"On steroids," Amy added.

Dan glared, but didn't say anything.

**My eyes stung.**

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the whole class, telling me that I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"**Right," I trembled.**

"**No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say… you're not normal, Ian.**

"Ouch," Ted said.

"Brunner's right, Ian," Natalie smirked. "You're not normal."

"Everyone in this room isn't normal!" Ian exclaimed.

**That's nothing to be-" **

"**Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

"**Ian-"**

**But I was already gone.**

"Page break," Jonah announced.

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. **

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans.**

"Vacation?" Natalie asked, confused.

"Since you guys live in London, you would say 'holiday' instead of 'vacation'." Amy explained. "Like how you say 'rubbish' but people in America say or 'trash'."

"Oh," Natalie said, as if it made much more sense now.

**One of them was going hiking in Switzerland.**

Amy and Dan winced of the memory of their trip to Switzerland.

**Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month.**

Ian and Natalie flinched as they remembered their old house in the Bahamas.

**They were juvenile delinquents like me, but they were **_**rich **_**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody from a family of nobodies.**

"Wow," Amy said. "That sentence sounded so… wrong,"

Everyone murmured in agreement.

"That should be the other way around," Ian said.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer, and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying where I'd go to school in the fall.**

"I feel so bad for you, Ian," Natalie said. "Living like that in the summer is a nightmare."

"**Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool." **

**Then they went back to their conversation like I wasn't even there.**

"That's rude," Sinead said.

**The only person I dreaded saying goodbye to was Jonah, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so that we were, together again, heading into the city.**

"Greyhound? As in a type of dog?" Natalie asked.

"No, it's a bus," Jonah said, remembering the time when he took a Greyhound to Manhattan when he was eleven years old. His mom was producing some movie there.

**During the whole bus ride, Jonah kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"It's never good to get straight to the point," Ian said.

**Jonah nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam. **

"Never confess," Natalie said.

**Jonah's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"**

"Oh… not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"

**He winced. "Look, Ian… I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers…"**

"I would be worried about him, too," Dan said.

"Remember what I said yesterday about throwing you overboard, Dan?" Ian asked him. "I still haven't forgotten about that."

"**Jonah-"**

"**And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and…"**

"**Jonah, you're a really bad liar."**

"You don't need to be a Lucian to figure that out," Reagan said.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby businessman card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800) 009-0009**_

**A/N: I decided to stop here because the chapter is really long.**

**I believe that I told you to read this A/N. This is why:**

**I'm sorry that I haven't updated in a month. I'm very busy in school and my job at my dad's restaurant.**

**Speaking of school, because of this, I ****probably**** won't update for **_**at least**_** another weak. There is a 40% chance that I will update before then though.**

**I'm not going to put the full chapters of PJO in these chapters in my story, because that would make the chapter really, really wrong. Seriously; my document on Microsoft Word right now is up to eleven pages with now 2,1387 - and counting - words.**

**Thanks for reading and review! **

**P.S. Please no flames. Just constructive criticism. **


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson & The Olympians or The 39 Clues.**

"That's a nice business card and all," Dan said. "But what's Half-Blood Hill?"

"It'll be revealed soon," Jonah said.

Then he continued with the story.

"**What's Half-"**

"**Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um… summer address."**

"That's it?" Dan complained. "It's just a summer address?"

"Dan," Natalie said. "You don't have to be a genius to figure out that he's lying."

**My heart sank. Jonah had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

"**Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

"Who says that it's a mansion?" Ned pointed out.

**He nodded. "Or… or if you need me."**

"**Why would I need you?"**

"That's low man," Hamilton muttered. "Just low."

Ian glared. He didn't even bother to point out anymore that he didn't actually say anything.

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

**Jonah blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Ian, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."  
**

"I don't need protection," Ian said.

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten into fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me.**_

"Like Ian would really worry about someone's well being," Dan said.

"Excuse me, Daniel, but there are some people that I do care about," Ian retorted.

"Like who? Yourself?"

"Natalie for instance," Ian said. "And a couple of other people."

"**Jonah," I said. "what exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

"Yuck," Sinead said. "Rotten eggs."

**After a few minutes of clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Jonah and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road – no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

"Who sells fruit on the highway?" Amy asked, confused.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"Uh oh," Dan recalled. "_Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death_…"

**I mean, these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

"Couldn't they have chosen another color besides blue?" Natalie asked, disgusted. "Couldn't they have chosen a better color? Like, pink?"

Ian face-palmed.

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, sliver hair tied back in white bandanas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

Natalie blanched.

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

"That doesn't seem right," Dan said.

"You think?" Ian said.

**I looked over at Jonah to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching. **

"**Jonah?" I said. "Hey, man-"**

"**Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

"That's weird," Madison and Reagan said at the same time.

"**Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

Some of the people in the room snorted.

"Seriously, Ian?" Hamilton asked. "You think those socks would've fit you?"

Ian glared. "Not me, but maybe you."

Hamilton shrugged, as if he was thinking the same thing.

"**Not funny, Ian. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors – gold and silver, long-bladed, shears. I heard Jonah catch his breath.**

Amy seemed confused. Then, it looked like she recognized those old ladies. "Jonah," she asked. "Tell me those aren't the…"

She trailed off. Jonah ignored her.

"**We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

"**What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

"**Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

"Bad idea, Ian," Amy said.

"Why?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure it will be revealed soon."

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn,**

"My suspicions are confirmed." Amy said.

"What suspicions?" Dan finally asked.

"I don't want to spoil the book."

**and I could swear I could hear the **_**snip**_** across four-lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they were for – Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

"Probably Sasquatch," Hamilton said.

"No, Godzilla," Dan argued.

Then they got into this whole ridiculous argument on which monster the socks would fit. That is until, Natalie shot them with her dart gun, and they were knocked unconscious.

"Thanks, Natalie," Amy said.

Natalie smirked. "Anytime."

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. **

**The passengers cheered.**

"**Darn right!" yelled the driver. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

"Oh no," Amy said. "That's not good after what just happened."

"What are you talking about?" Ian asked for the second time.

Amy sighed in defeat. "Have you ever heard of the Three Fates?"

Ian then said. "Oh. That's not good."

Amy nodded. "That's all you probably needed to hear."

Just then, Hamilton and Dan started to wake. Dan muttered, "What happened?"

"Nothing," Natalie smirked.

**Jonah didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chatting.**

"**Jonah?"**

"Yeah?"

"**What are you not telling me?"**

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Ian**, **what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

"Why would he be asking that?" Hamilton asked. "It's not like cutting yarn is important or anything."

"In this case…" Amy said.

"It is important," Ian completed her sentence.

"**You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like… Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"I hope not," Dan said.

Ian and Amy shared a glance. "No," they said at the same time.

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds.  
**

"They are," Ian said.

**He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

"**The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost – older. **

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

"**Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

"It _is_ a big deal," Amy said.

"**This is not happening," Jonah mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like last time."**

"**What last time?"**

"**Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."  
**

"Thankfully, Dan got past sixth," Amy said, changing the subject.

"Yeah, thanks to my super math and history skills," Dan bragged.

"**Jonah," I said because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

"**Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

"Now Jonah is starting to freak me out," Sinead said.

"Excuse me?" Jonah asked, offended.

"No, I mean your character."

"**Is this like superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer. **

"**Jonah – that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking out the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"That's… creepy," Ted said. "_Does_ that mean somebody's going to die, Amy?"

"Can't tell you," she responded.

**A/N: I know I said I wouldn't update in at least another week, but I did. I want to get at least one more chapter up before the weekend is up. So, here you go! Enjoy!**

**I saw some of the mistakes I made last chapter, and I don't know if I will fix them. I'm just lazy like that :P**

Response to review:

** JesseCPK: Let's hope that Dan doesn't figure that out XD**

**Thanks for reading! Remember, no flames, just constructive criticism.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson & The Olympians or The 39 Clues.**

"Who's hungry for lunch?" Jonah asked.

The Holts and Dan raised their hands. Jonah pressed a button on his remote, and a wide variety of sandwiches, salads, and drinks appeared on the table. At least Natalie didn't complain this time.

After everyone grabbed their meals, they sat back down at their seats. Jonah continued the story:

**Confession time: I ditched Jonah as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"A typical Kabra," Dan rolled his eyes.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Jonah was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it have to be sixth grade?"**

"That is pretty creepy," Natalie said.

**Whenever he got upset, Jonah's bladder acted up, **

Dan smirked. "Really, Jonah?"

Jonah frowned. "No! That's just my character!"

Ian looked at Jonah. "This is what I've been going through the entire story."

**so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown. **

"**East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

"Page break," Jonah said. Then he continued.

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"I wish I never met your mother, Ian," Hamilton shuddered. "She has problems."

"And you're just realizing that?" Ian asked.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people get the rottenest luck.**

Everyone looked at Dan and Amy.

"You guys seriously think we're good people?" Amy asked, flattered.

"Yes," everyone said while Natalie said: "Maybe not Daniel…"

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her.**

"Where have I heard that before?" Dan muttered to himself.

**She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school during her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

"That's worse than what happened to us," Amy said.

**The only good thing she ever got was meeting my dad.**

"Aww, that's sweet," Sinead said.

"Yuck," Dan said.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of a smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married.**

"That's… interesting," Ned said.

**She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. **

Natalie and Dan sent glares to Ian and Amy. "What?" they both exclaimed.

"Nothing," they responded.

**Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back. **

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea. **

"Isn't that pretty much the same thing?" Dan asked.

"Not exactly," Amy responded.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"That's a good mom," Sinead mused. "One that's able to put up with Ian…"

If looks could kill, Ian would've made Sinead burst into ashes.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Everyone laughed at the last couple of sentences of the paragraph.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty bad. The way Smelly Gabe treated me, the way he and I get along… well, when I came home was a good example.**

"Page break," Jonah said.

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies.**

"I'm surprised he has any friends," Reagan said.

**The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet. **

"That's disgusting," Amy muttered.

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So you're home."**

"**Where's my mom?"**

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

"That guy is a whole new definition of shame," Natalie said.

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tusk-less walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

"I think I'm about to puke," Dan said.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why h hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

"Wow, I'm actually starting to feel bad for you, Ian," Hamilton said.

Ian nodded. "I would probably send out the best Lucian agents to kidnap that guy and… you probably don't want to know what happens after that."

"**I don't have any cash," I told him. **

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

Natalie gagged.

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Dan smirked. "You got that right."

"**You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got, six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"**Am I right?" Gabe repeated.**

"No," Ian frowned.

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"That is beyond foul," Natalie said.

"**Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

"**Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

"Burn!" Dan and Hamilton sang together.

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During the school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boot on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne, and cigars and stale beer. **

"I said it once, and I'm going to say it again," Dan said. "I think I'm going to puke."

**I dropped my suitcase on my bed. Home sweet home.**

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears before snipping the yarn.**

"I almost forgot about that," Madison said.

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Jonah's look of panic – how he'd made me promise not to go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone – something – was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible, talons.**

"I probably drive myself crazy if that happened to me," Amy said.

**Then, I heard my mom's voice. "Ian?"**

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted. 

**My mother made me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkled and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in her long, brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say any unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe. **

"Aww, Ian has a heart," Dan teased.

"Dan," Amy scolded him.

"**Oh, Ian." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-and-white Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," they way she always did when I came home.**

"Aww," Hamilton complained. "I want a bag of 'free samples,'"

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing alright?**

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

"That's how I know Dan feels whenever I hug him," Amy said.

"You have no proof," Dan said.

"I've known you since birth. I know you better than you know yourself."

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally – how about some bean dip, huh?"**

Natalie wrinkled her nose. "Bean dip?"

**I gritted my teeth. **

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe. **

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Jonah and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit didn't seem so bad. **

"That's saying something," Sinead muttered.

**Until that trip to the museum…**

"**What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

"Yes, mom," Hamilton said in a girly voice. "Some monster attacked me at the museum, and then the weirdest thing happened! There were these weird old ladies that-"

"Shut up," Ian said.

"**No, Mom."**

I felt bad lying.

"That's a first," Dan muttered.

**I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

"**I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?" **

Amy sighed dreamily. "I would love to go there someday," she muttered.

"**Three nights - same cabin."**

"**When?"**

"**As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

"Yeah, right," Dan mumbled.

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

"I bet Dan wouldn't be able to keep that deal," Amy said. "Even if he tried."

"That shows just how barbaric Dan is," Natalie muttered.

"Natalie is a she-devil!" Dan exclaimed. "She was sent by the Devil himself!"

"Like I said," Natalie said. "A barbarian."

"**I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"**I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

"**Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added. "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Gabriel?" Hamilton asked, giggling.

"A seven-layer dip?" Natalie said, disgusted.

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip… it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

Natalie gasped. "Clothes budget?"

Ian rolled his eyes. "He's taking money away from her, and your worried that she has a _clothes budget_?"

"**Yes, honey," my mother said.**

"**And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

"**We'll be very careful."**

"Wow," Sinead muttered. "That guy has a lot of restrictions."

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry up with that seven-layer dip… And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

Maybe if I kick you in you soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

Everyone laughed a bit at that comment.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. Why did she care what he thought?**

"Because she's a nice person," Amy said.

"**I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"**Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

"**Thank you, Ian," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about… whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

"I think she knows about something that happened to Ian's character," Amy mused.

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes – the same fear I'd seen in Jonah during the bus ride – as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do not own The 39 Clues or Percy Jackson & The Olympians**

**This might be my last update until Monday because I am going on a camping trip to Shenandoah National Park, Virginia! So excited!**

"Okay, I say we finish this chapter, then we eat dinner. Agreed?" Jonah asked.

"As long as it's not," Natalie shuddered. "Pizza."

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking – and more important, his '78 Camaro – for the whole weekend.**

"There are more important things in life," Amy said.

"Well, pray tell, Amy, what is important to you?" Dan asked.

"First, there's you, dweeb," Amy rolled her eyes as Dan pretended to gag. "Education. My family,"

"Does 'family' include us?" Hamilton asked.

"Well, yeah," Amy said. "If you count very, very distant cousins. But I was also thinking about my Uncle Fiske and Nellie."

"But you Nellie isn't related to you," Ian pointed out.

"Sometimes I think of her as my older sister,"

"**Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

**Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

"How?" Ted asked, incredulous.

"He'd probably say something like, 'Ian's body odor attracted the seagulls,' or something," Dan said.

"I do not have body odor!" Ian exclaimed.

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Jonah make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe.**

Amy's eyes widened. "I don't think that's a good idea…"

**The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon. **

The Holts and Dan started laughing.

"What did I tell you?" Amy muttered. "Bad idea."

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

"A _freak accident_? Please," Ian snorted. "I'm glad I did that to him."

"I thought, throughout this whole story, Ian," Sinead said. "You said it wasn't you."

"Only when I want it to be me, it's me," he responded.

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

"Page break," Jonah said.

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

Natalie blanched. "That's torture! Who would _willingly _stay there?"

Almost everyone in the room raised their hands.

**I loved the place.**

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

The Holts and Dan said: Yuck.

Sinead, Natalie, and Amy said: Awww! That's so sweet!

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine.**

"Cleaning… routine?" Natalie nearly fainted.

**We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jellybeans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

"Honestly, I don't really care why Ian likes blue food…" Natalie trailed off.

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop.**

"I wonder if we could ask Nellie to make that…" Dan mused.

**This – along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano – was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"That's nice," Natalie said flatly.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about books she wanted to write someday when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

"She sounds like a pretty happy person for someone with a miserable life," Ian said.

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was on my mind whenever we came to Montauk – my father. Mom's eyes got all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

"**He was kind, Ian," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his amber eyes."**

"Sounds like fath-" Natalie caught herself. "Vikram. Sounds like Vikram. Tall. Handsome. Powerful. But definitely not gentle."

"Jonah," Ian asked. "Does the character have black hair and brown – or _amber, _as you said – eyes?"

"Yes and no," Jonah said. "Percy has black hair, but doesn't have your eye color. He originally has green eyes. I just changed the description to match yours. I'm going to do that with the rest of our characters too. Like, the character could have blue eyes, but I would change it to green eyes just to match the person who is going to be that character's description."

**Mom fished a blue jellybean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Ian. He would be so proud."**

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

"Yeah," Dan mimicked Jonah. "Who could be proud of a kid like Ian?"

"Dan," Amy said calmly. "I'm really getting sick and tired of your comments."

"**How old was I?" I asked. "I mean… when he left?"**

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Ian. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But… he knew me as a baby."

"**No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

"That's not a happy thought," Reagan said.

**I tried to square out the fact that I seemed to remember… something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"That doesn't make sense," Sinead said.

Amy nodded in agreement. "He shouldn't have any memories of him if he wasn't even born before his father left."

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never seen me…**

**I felt angry at my father.**

"I _am_," Ian growled.

**Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

"I don't really have an opinion about that…" Dan trailed off.

"**Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

"**I don't know, honey," Her voice was heavy. " I think… I think we'll have to do something."**

"**Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"Wrong thing to say, Percy," Ian said.

"But that character's you…" Hamilton said.

"I said it once, and I'm going to say it again. The character is only me when I want it to be me."

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand and squeezed it tight. "Oh, Ian, no. I – I **_**have**_** to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said – that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

"**Because I'm not normal," I said.**

Natalie opened her mouth to comment, but Ian cut her off before she could say anything.

"Natalie. Just shut it."

"**You say that as if it's a bad thing, Ian. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

"Safe from what?" Ian murmured.

"**Safe from what?"**

"Creepy…" Hamilton said.

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me – all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I tried to forget.**

"What scary things?" Dan asked. "Because _nothing_ is scarier than being a Cahill."

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground.**

_That sounds like Uncle Fiske during the Clue Hunt,_ Dan's eyes told Amy's.

Amy nodded her head in agreement.

**When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one ever believed me when I told them that under his broad-trimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his forehead. **

"Jonah, is my character saying that he saw a Cyclops?" Ian asked, appalled.

"I stand corrected," Dan said. "That is probably as scary as being a Cahill."

"Just you wait," Jonah said. "It gets creepier."

**Before that – a really early memory. I was in preschool and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope that I somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"Isn't that a coincidence," Hamilton said. "A Lucian strangling a snake."

"And strange," Amy added. "That sounds vaguely like that ancient Greek mythology story with Heracles. When he was a baby, he strangled a snake to death too."

"Don't you mean Hercules?" Natalie asked.

"Hercules is his Roman and more commonly known name. When the Romans adopted Greek culture, they changed his original name – Heracles – to Hercules, just like they did with all of the Greek god's names. For example," Ian explained. "They changed the Greek goddess Athena's name to Minerva. Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom."

"Thank you for that unnecessary history lesson," Dan said sarcastically.

"Well," Jonah smirked. "I am telling you this story so you can learn more about ancient Greece."

**In every single school, something creepy had happened and I was forced to move**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk and I didn't want that.**

"**I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Ian – the place your father wanted me to send you to. And I just… I just can't stand to do it."**

"**My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

"**Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

"A summer camp?" Madison snorted. "I would rather go there than to school."

Everyone but the Starlings, Amy, and the Kabras nodded their heads in agreement.

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad – who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born – talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

"**I'm sorry, Ian," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I – I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying goodbye to you for good."**

"It's just a summer camp," Dan said incredulous, to no one in particular.

"You still think it's a normal summer camp, Daniel?" Natalie asked with a _You're so stupid, _look.

"**For good? But if it's only a summer camp…" **

"My exact thoughts," Ned said.

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry. **

"Page break," Jonah announced.

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, they ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

"An eagle and a horse?" Amy asked suspiciously, as if she was starting to recognize what the animals were.

"Yeah," Dan said. "Why?"

"Because those are the sacred animals of… never mind."

"Why are you doing that throughout the whole story?" Hamilton asked, annoyed. "First the ladies at the fruit stand, then the Hercules story, and now this! How do you know all of this stuff?"

"I read," Amy answered simply, as if Hamilton just asked her what 1+1 was.

**I ran toward them, knowing that I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, **_**No!**_

**I woke with a start. **

"That was a nice dream," Sinead said sarcastically.

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

"Why on earth would they go to the beach if there was a hurricane?" Ted asked.

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

"That's not good," Natalie said.

Ian rolled his eyes. "You think?"

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice – someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. **

"I wouldn't open that door for whoever's outside. Bad idea," Sinead said.

Jonah looked offended. "What?" she asked, puzzled.

He looked miffed. "You'll see."

**Jonah stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of rain. **

"Oh," Sinead grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, Jonah…"

**But he wasn't… he wasn't exactly Jonah. **

"**Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

"What is he talking about?" Ian asked. "What does he mean, 'What was I thinking'?"

"Like, 'What was Ian thinking when he _ditched_ me at the bus terminal'?" Dan said. "That kind of thinking."

**My mother looked at me in terror – not scared of Jonah, but of why he'd come. **

"**Ian," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Jonah. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

"Seeing what?" Hamilton asked, absentminded.

"_**O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" **_**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you **_**tell **_**her?"**

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly.**

"Well, that isn't normal," Natalie said.

**I was too shocked to wonder how Jonah had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Jonah didn't have his pants on – and where his legs should be… where his legs should be…**

"Wait, Jonah isn't wearing any _pants_?" Dan asked, with an amused expression on his face.

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "**_**Ian. **_**Tell me **_**now!**_**"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning. **

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. **_**Go!**_**"**

"Well, isn't that strange," Dan said.

"Duh!" Natalie exclaimed.

**Jonah ran for the Camaro – but he wasn't running exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters. **

"_Shaggy hindquarters?"_ Dan said, trying not to laugh. "Really, Jonah? You have shaggy hindquarters?"

Jonah sighed. "It's just my character."

"But, why would Ian say, 'Shaggy hindquarters' if he was talking about a person?" Amy asked, curiously.

**And suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp while he walked. **

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson & The Olympians or The 39 Clues**

"Jonah, do you really have hooves?" Dan asked. And he sounded serious.

Jonah rolled his eyes. "What do you _think_, Dan?"

Dan's eyes widened. "So you _do_ have hooves?"

Amy face palmed. "Dan, you're such a dweeb. Jonah does not have hooves."

Hamilton changed the subject. "Jonah, didn't you promise us dinner?"

"Oh, yeah." Jonah pressed a button, and steak, caviar, salads, bread and butter, and a whole variety of drinks appeared on the table.

"Finally, some decent food," Natalie muttered.

Then, everyone had their meals and was eating. Everyone was just talking about random things, like what they did since the last time they saw each other and such. But everyone paused when they heard a huge crash come from the hallway from their rooms.

Ian and Hamilton jumped up and ran towards the hall. Ian had his dart gun at the ready while Hamilton balled up his fists.

Then, Ian's confused voice said, "There's nobody there."

"Wait!" Hamilton's voice called. "There's a smashed vase on the floor. With a note."

"Well, what does the note say?" Sinead asked impatiently.

Ian picked up the note and read it aloud:

**We're watching you.**

"Who's it from?" Amy asked.

"It doesn't say," Ian replied.

"Well, that's just great!" Dan said sarcastically. "We're supposed to be on a normal, family – in a way – vacation! Can't we have one break from this stupid Cahill business?"

"Whoa, whoa, guys. Let's just chill," Jonah said. "Don't stress. We don't have to go to bed just yet – I'll read you another part of the story to get your mind off of things."

"Jonah, it's getting dark out," Amy pointed out. "Shouldn't we be going to bed soon?"

"Nah, it's only 7:45." Hamilton looked at the clock. "We have a couple of hours to kill."

"Okay." Jonah rubbed his hands together. "Chapter four: _My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting._"

**We tore through the night along a dark country road. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshields. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"She's Supermom!" Madison exclaimed.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Jonah sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane,**

"Ian's _already _insane," Natalie said. "I mean, having a crush on A-"

Ian covered her mouth before she could say anything else.

**or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo – lanoline, like from wool. The smell of wet barnyard animal. **

"Jonah, what kind of cologne are you using?" Hamilton smirked.

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom… know each other?"**

**Jonah's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

"_Watching_ me?" Ian asked, incredulously.

"**Watching me?"**

"Ian, I think you have some of Percy in you." Dan smirked.

"**Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being you friend," he added hastily. "I **_**am**_** your friend."**

"**Um… what are you exactly?"**

"Yeah, Jonah," Hamilton said. "_What_ are you?"

"**That doesn't matter right now."**

"**It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"**

"Donkey?" Madison and Reagan said together, before bursting into a fit of laughter.

**Jonah let out a sharp, throaty **_**"Blaa-ha-ha!"**_

"What was _that_?" Ted asked.

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was an irritated bleat.**

"**Goat!" he cried.**

"**What?"**

"I'm a _**goat**_** from the waist down."**

"Oh, a satyr," Ian said thoughtfully.

"**You just said it didn't matter."**

"_**Blaa-ha-ha! **_**There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

"Why would they take that as an insult?" Reagan asked.

"**Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like… Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

"**Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a **_**myth**_**, Ian? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

"**So you **_**admit**_** there was a Mrs. Dodds?"**

"I knew it!" Dan exclaimed, jumping up on the couch. "There _was_ a Mrs. Dodds!"

Everyone stared at him like he was crazy.

"We _all _did, Daniel." Natalie rolled her eyes. "Amy's right. You _are_ a dweeb."

"**Of course."**

"**Then why-"**

"**The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Jonah said, like it was perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

"Monsters?" Ned asked, confused.

"Mist?" his twin brother added.

"**Who I – wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

"**Ian," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

"Safety from what?" Dan asked sarcastically. "Some, I don't know, _monsters_ that are out to kill Ian? Not that I have a problem with that or anything."

"You know what Daniel-" Ian started, but was interrupted by Natalie.

"Ian. Just shut it. He's not worth wasting your breath over."

"Thank you, Natalie!" Dan said. Then he realized what she said at the end of her sentence. "Hey!"

"**Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

"**Oh, nobody much," Jonah said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment.**

Madison rolled her eyes. "Big deal. Ian called you a donkey, Jonah. So what?"

Everyone looked at Madison.

"Oh, that came out wrong…" She trailed off.

"**Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"**Jonah!"**

"**Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird. **

"I don't know about that," Natalie said. "Once when Ian was sleep-talking, he said something about drowning in chocolate syrup."

Ian looked at her. "I do not remember dreaming anything like that."

Amy shrugged. "You dream every night, but most likely you won't remember what you dreamt."

Dan looked like he was in some sort of a daydream. "I wish I were drowning in chocolate syrup."

"Doesn't everyone?" Jonah replied.

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"**Where are we going?" I asked. **

"**The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

"You mean the summer camp she didn't want him to go to?" Hamilton asked.

"**The place where you didn't want me to go."**

Hamilton's eyes widened. "Weird…"

"**Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

"**Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

"**Those weren't old ladies," Jonah said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means – the fact that they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to… when someone's about to die."**

"Wait, wait, wait! Hold on a second," Ian cut in. "He said, 'you', then corrected himself to 'someone'. Is my character going to die, Jonah?"

Jonah shrugged. "I can't tell you. Ever heard of a 'spoiler'?"

"No one likes a spoiler," Ned said.s

"**Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

"**No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

"**You meant 'you'. As in **_**me**_**."**

"**I meant **_**you**_**, like 'someone.' Not you, **_**you**_**."**

"Jonah's a bad liar," Sinead said.

"Jonah and Ian have been arguing a lot like that lately," Reagan pointed out.

"**Boys!" my mom said.**

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid – a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

"**What was that?" I asked. **

"**We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

"She's starting to freak me out…" Ned said.

**I didn't know where **_**there **_**was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing, but rain and darkness – the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really **_**hadn't **_**been human.**

"Hmm, I wonder what I'm going to spend my ten dollars on," Hamilton mused, reminding Dan of the bet they made yesterday. "Some skittles, maybe…"

"Shut up," Dan growled.

**She'd meant to kill me.**

**Then I though about Mr. Brunner… and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Jonah about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling **_**boom!,**_** and our car exploded.**

"That's not good…" Ted said.

Dan looked at Ted incredulously. "Ya think?!"

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. **

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

The Holts and Dan snorted.

"**Ian!" my mom shouted.**

"**I'm okay…"**

"Sure, don't see if your mom is okay," Sinead said.

Ian didn't answer. He wasn't even going to point out that he didn't do any of that stuff anymore.

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in. **

**Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Jonah!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

"_That's_ what you were thinking?" Ned said incredulously.

"That's something that Dan would think, not Ian," Natalie pointed out.

"You… called me Dan," Dan said in disbelief.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

"Ian actually has a sense of humor," Hamilton said.

"I do have a sense of humor," Ian replied. "Ask Natalie."

Everyone looked at Natalie. "Well, sometimes." **(A/N: Is anyone else thinking of "Shoot to kill?" while reading this?)**

"**Ian," my mother said, "we have to…" Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. The dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—" **

"**Ian," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

"That's quite a pickle you're in," Dan said. "And I can't believe Ian's too weak to open a car door."

Ian glared daggers at him. "Just wait until I figure out who your character is, and I'll make fun of you to no end."

Dan gulped. Ian's tone reminded him of Nellie's when he accidentally broke her iPod, forcing her to get a new one.

"**Climb out the passengers side!" my mother told me. "Ian—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"**What?"**

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

"**That's the property line," my mom said.**

"To the camp?" Dan asked.

"Yes, Dan!" Amy exclaimed, exasperated. "Can't we go five minutes without interrupting Jonah?"

Almost everyone shook his or her heads. "No."

"**Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

"**Mom, you're coming too."**

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

"How can you be sad when you're looking at the ocean? Even if her husband got lost at sea – but still!" Dan asked.

Jonah shrugged. "Let's stop here. I'm tired. Let's go to bed."

"Well, did they receive the message?" a voice snapped through the other end of the phone.

The spy – let's call him Bill – winced at his employer's tone. "Yes, I left the message in the hallway. I'm sure they got it."

"They better have."

**I know, weird place to stop reading the story. Whatever.**

**Anyway, I'm so sorry I haven't updated in like, what, four months? I'm probably the worst author ever. I've had about two people PM me about updating. I wish I could update more often, but I'm really busy with school and after-school activities. The lesson here people: I'm probably not going to that often.**

**Who's read Trust No One? It's a great book and Linda Sue Park did a great job and all, but there was too much Jamy stuff for me. It made me want to hurl. And poor Alistair! He didn't deserve to die! And what about Nellie? I don't even know if she's alive! And Evan actually defended Ian at the beginning of the book… wow. The Vesper's master plan is a little extreme, don't you think? And I think Amy is driving herself insane. Literally. **

**And my heart goes out to anyone reading this who had any close connection with the shooting in Connecticut. People like the guy responsible for it all are just so deranged, mental, sick, twisted, and… don't even get me started.**

**Anyway, please review! Tell me about any mistakes (even if there are, I'm probably going to be too lazy to fix it), and OOCness, etc. Thanks for reading!  
**

**-Hailey **


	11. Chapter 11

**I do not own The 39 Clues or Percy Jackson & The Olympians.**

The next morning was uneventful. Amy woke up, got dressed and brushed her teeth and hair, and went downstairs. After waiting for a couple more Cahills to come downstairs, Jonah continued with his story.

"**No!" I shouted. "You **_**are **_**coming with me. Help me carry Jonah."**

"**Food!" Jonah moaned, a little louder.**

Dan snickered.

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he **_**couldn't **_**be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head… was his head. And the points that looked like horns…**

Hamilton snorted. "It took him that long to realize it wasn't a blanket?"

"**He doesn't want **_**us**_**," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

"Who would want Ian?" Natalie asked.

"Gee, thanks," Ian said sarcastically.

"**But…"**

"**We don't have time, Ian. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover, the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

Completely off topic, Dan said, "I want to go to a rodeo and ride a bull someday."

"No," Amy said.

"Why not?" Dan whined.

"Because you'd fall and break your neck."

"But—"

"No buts."

Dan slumped back into his seat.

**I climbed across Jonah and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

"**I told you—"**

"**Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Jonah."**

"I almost forgot about that poor goat," Hamilton said.

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Jonah from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Jonah's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"I'd hate to be you, Ian," Ted said.

Everyone looked at the Starlings. "I almost forgot that you guys were here," Jonah said.

"We like to listen to the story, rather than put our comments in every two sentences," Sinead retorted.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of **_**Muscle Man **_**magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin.**

"That, terrifyingly, sounds like Dad," Madison said.

The other two Holts nodded in agreement.

**He wore no clothes except for underwear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary.**

"Hey, Ian actually has a sense of humor!" Dan exclaimed sarcastically.

"I think we mentioned that yesterday, Dan." Natalie rolled her eyes.

**Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"The author went into specifics that I didn't need to hear," Amy said.

"I want that thing as my pet," Dan added.

**I recognized this monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

"**Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

"Who?" Natalie looked up from her phone.

"**I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

"Who's out to kill me?" Ian asked. "First the bloody monster at the museum, then the three old ladies at the fruit stand, and now this."

Hamilton patted him on the back—well, when it comes to Hamilton, it was more like he almost pushed Ian off of the couch. "Tough luck, buddy."

"**But he's the Min—"**

"**Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

Dan looked up at the ceiling and yelled, "MIN!"

After nothing happened after five seconds, he shrugged.

"Idiot," Amy muttered. "That's not its name."

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking into the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

"That sounds like Saladin," Dan commented.

"**Food?" Jonah moaned. **

"**Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough.

"Why aren't they running?" Sinead asked.

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt in a shower of sparks for about a half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

"Show off," Madison and Reagan muttered at the same time.

"Like you guys could do that," Dan said.

"You'd be surprised at what they're capable of," Hamilton said.

Dan just stared at him.

_**Not a scratch, **_**I remembered Gabe saying.**

**Oops.**

"**Ian," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way—directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

"How does she know that_?_" Natalie asked.

"**How do you know all this?"**

Everyone looked at Natalie.

"**I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"**Keeping me near you? But—" **

"You sent him away to a boarding school," Ian practically finished the sentence for Percy.

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

"Just call him the Minotaur already," Amy said, exasperated.

Hamilton covered his ears and yelled, "SPOILER ALERT!"

**He's smelled us.**

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Jonah wasn't getting any lighter.**

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Jonah. "Go, Ian! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had a feeling she was right—**

"Mother knows best," Dan chided.

**It was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

"I hate that smell." Ned wrinkled his noise.

"And you would have experience with that, _how_?" Sinead questioned.

He frowned. "That's none of your business."

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

"Go, bull!" Dan rooted.

Ian stared at him. "You want me to die?"

"Yeah, there has been an over-population of Cobras lately."

Natalie smacked the back of his head.

"What was that for?" Dan yelped.

"Cobras and monkeys have been known to fight," she retorted.

"Monkeys and cobras live in completely different environments," Amy argued. "But a mongoose would suffice, because—"

"Whatever. You know what I mean."

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

Hamilton whistled. "Smooth moves."

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Jonah down in the grass**

"What if the bull-man accidentally steps on Jonah?" Reagan wondered aloud.

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

"Way to be optimistic," said Sinead.

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back to the road, trying to lead the monster away from Jonah. **

"**Run, Ian!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her.**

"Moron," Natalie said.

**She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

"**Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, and managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

"That doesn't sound good," Ted said.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Dan said sarcastically.

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply… gone.**

"Uh oh. Now you're going to be stuck with Smelly Gabe for the rest of your life, Ian," Madison said.

"**No!" **

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

"I forgot about Mrs. Dodds," Dan said.

Ian stared at him. "I mentioned her about two minutes ago!"

"Sorry, whenever you speak, I just zone out."

**The bull-man bore down on Jonah, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Jonah up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't let that happen.**

"No, let it happen," Reagan said. "I could live without hearing _Jonah Wizard _this and _Jonah Wizard _that."

"You do know that I'm sitting right across from you," Jonah said, offended.

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

"**Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"Just imagine a twelve year old Ian Kabra saying that…" Hamilton said.

"**Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"Nothing ever goes according to plan when you're a Cahill." Amy sighed.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

Hamilton whistled. "That's some serious parkour."

"I think if Ian tried that in real life, he'd break every bone in his body," Natalie said.

"I bet I could do that!" Dan exclaimed.

"Then why don't you do that on the boat's railing?" Ian asked.

"He'd fall of ship!" Amy said.

"That's the point," Ian responded.

**How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

"That stinks," Ned said.

"Literally or figuratively?" Dan asked.

"I don't know! Whichever."

Dan held his hands up in surrender.

**The monster shook himself around a bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward. **

"That's kind of obvious," Natalie muttered.

**Meanwhile, Jonah started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

"**Food!" Jonah moaned.**

"Poor Jonah," Dan said. "All he wants is some food…"

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like a high-octane fuel.**

"Finally!" Ted said. "Someone who knows what high-octane fuel is."

"Huh?" Amy asked.

"I have no idea what he's talking about," Natalie leaned over and whispered to Amy who was sitting on her right.

"Dude. Seriously?" Ned looked at him.

**I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—**_**snap!**_

Madison looked at Ian. "Impressive. That's something a Holt can do."

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock.**

"Don't let a little thing like that stop you!" Reagan encouraged.

"_Little_ thing?" Sinead asked. "That's serious! He could gain a concussion!"

"Pfft." Hamilton looked at her. "Come on. I've gotten about a hundred of those playing football, and I'm still going to strong!"

"That's seriously unhealthy," Amy said. "You could get some serious brain damage, and the side effects are serious and sometimes even deadly."

"Not when you're a Tomas," Reagan responded.

"Or a Holt," her twin added.

"It's weird to see people argue about my character's health issues," Ian to Natalie.

In response, she just shrugged.

**When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right under his furry rib cage.**

"Hmm. I like being this character." Ian smirked.

"Don't be getting all smug," Amy joked. "I bet my character is going to be better."

"Oh, please. _I'm _the main character."

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Jonah, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Jonah—I wasn't going to let go of him.**

"You can't help but feel bad for Percy," Sinead said.

"Of course," Ian muttered.

**The last thing I remembered is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her eyes as green as jade. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

"**Silence, Amy," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**


End file.
